


Being Javi Garcia

by pansypxrkinson



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Bisexuality, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Coming Out, Gen, Mariana Garcia is the best again, but in a bittersweet way, kind of sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 20:32:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12395703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pansypxrkinson/pseuds/pansypxrkinson
Summary: And then…Then there were certain things that Javi felt he was not allowed to be.Being bisexual was one of them.





	Being Javi Garcia

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. This is just a reupload of something I posted to tumblr a while back.  
> It's set in TWDG universe in celebration of my son Javi's canon bisexually, woop woop <3  
> Naturally, it's a character study, because they are my absolute favourite things to write.
> 
> Hope you enjoy. Likes and comments are always appreciated!  
> -  
> Original Summary-
> 
> (So in celebration of pride, and Javi’s bisexuality, I had a lot of Thoughts and needed to get them out…  
> Of course, it ended up as a full blown Thing once again (why am I like this???)  
> And yeah, I thought I’d share...)

To be frank, Javi had thought it would be somewhat more manageable in the apocalypse.

He supposed that in a morbid way, perhaps it would be easier to find acceptance in a world where the majority of the population consisted of the brain dead, and the rest too preoccupied with one thing, and one thing only- not dying. 

Javi knew that even in times like these he could not be that single minded. He was too charming, and crucially too foolhardy to let something as minor as the walking dead break his spirit.

Because of course Javier Garcia, the baseball extraordinare who fucked it all up and laughed it all off, who scuffed the dirt with his shoes, lived in his father’s pocket and his brother’s shadow, was too senseless to understand the real world. Was happy in a foolish way. With the delighted indifference of a child who smiled at thunderstorms and plucked red roses fresh, baby fingers curling around the thorns without a care.

But Javi, like everyone, had always had things which he held close to his chest. Had always felt the thorns pressing against his fingers. Things which he’d believed for a long time would marr the perfect Garcia image.  
He was allowed to be a fuck up, he thought. It was acceptable, if not ideal, and sometimes Javi wonders if he'd fucked up as a compromise to himself.  
To give himself just a taste of the rejection he’d feel if his family could’ve seen through the charming boy stood in front of them.  
Perhaps you’d think him masochistic, and yet Javi knew that he was.  
What kind of gambler isn’t?

And then…Then there were certain things that Javi felt he was not allowed to be. Being bisexual was one of them.

So Javi rightfully maintained that it was purely his business if, before a game, he found his eyes drawn to a few of his teamates in appreciation.

Purely personal, if he looked up one too many times at the graceful elegance of the female faces in the crowd, and yet the male faces drew him in just as strongly.

Javi knew it was fine.

Sometimes he’d arrive home from parties, hazy from drunken fumblings and sillouettes in the dark so that he could fool himself into thinking the person stood before him were not the sharp edges and chapped lips of one of his teamates after a game.  
Sometimes the same would happen with a girl and Javi would astonish himself everytime with his lack of required secrecy. Javi decided he was a quiet person anyway when it came to relationships...

Occasionally he afforded a smile that said too much, a glace that revealed the heat in his eyes, a reddening of his cheeks, to the man in the crowd who caught his eyes one too many times.

And it would’ve been fine, had he not closed his eyes. Closed his eyes and seen the family portrait and a smudge where his smart arsed face should’ve been, an eternal imprint of his isolation. He felt the thorns pressing into him again.

And so he dropped it.

For a while he stayed like that. Lost and dejected, between the smiles and laughter, an echo of sadness every once in a while between the drowsy normality of life.

And then Javi’s world fell apart. Well… the entire world fell apart. Suddenly he found himself having to take on responsibilities that he’d never though capable of. Many of his worries had become irrelevent, others long forgotten.

He’d outgrown his years. Watched as the strain of protecting his family had aged him. Forgotten about the past. About his problems. He’d given up his own personal angst in attempts to soothe Gabe’s.  
And he had survived that way for what seemed like an eternity.

And although he’d thought it over, time and time again. Known it had been the perfect time, in a world where nothing mattered, and everything mattered all the same…

He’d never been able to bring himself to admit it. To say it aloud, even.

Mari had known. Of course she had. Even before he’d told her. Later he’d said to David she’d known things with an understanding beyond her years, and of course would evesdrop on what she hadn’t. He didn’t know, how sorely Javi’d meant it, and the pain in his chest when he thought of her smile.

Javi’d seen her once, in the rear view mirror of the van, when Kate would ask Javi of his days playing ball. He’d talk of the movements of his teamplayers with a dampened irreverence, and the parties they’d had afterwards with a detachment that he knew was transparent. He’d though he was being careful, but his features betrayed him whenever Kate would talk of his party animal lifestyle, and the memories of who he was came flooding back into his head, fresh as the since faded imprint of various lips against his own.  
He pretended to ignore Mari’s knowing look, and reached over to turn up her headphones.

                                        _

“You know no one cares, right”. She’d said to him one night, when they were scavenging food. 

“Mari…” 

He speaks with the paranoia of someone too weighed down with secrets, too afraid to ask for clarification. He knows Mari too well to know she’d be anything but subtle. Javi prides himself of being a brave man, but he’s not sure he’s ready for what’s going to come out of Mari’s mouth.

“…if you dated boys and girls,”

“Mari!” In all honestly, Javi has nothing more to say to that. He just stares.

“What? Don’t look at me like me like that, I’m serious. I’m just curious is all.  
Did it matter?” She takes a deep breath,

Javi steadies himself against the awkwardness he feels.

“I mean, did it used to matter? Were those the kinds of things that people argued about before…”

His silence seemed to sober her.

“It seems silly to me Javi, is all. It’s your business anyway, but I can tell you want to be honest with everyone.  
And if you can’t do that now, when any day could be your last, well when can you do it?”  
At this, she turns around, puts her headphones back on and starts emptying out a bin as if nothing had even happened.

A few weeks later she was killed.

Javi thinks of her everyday. When he closes his eyes he sees only Mari, and the smudge over her portrait, red like a blooded fingerprint. He knows that he’ll never be able to bury the guilt he feels. His failure to protect one of the most important things in his life.  
It kills him inside. 

He keeps going back over her words, her last comfort to him, and he thinks that he should have been the one to teach her a compassionate soul, not the other way around. Javi resolves to honour her memory as best he can. He keeps her in his heart, breathes for her, and moves on.

                                      _

Then David returns.

Suddenly Javi is thrust back into the role of screw up. Of the waste of space little brother who tried his best but never really got anywhere.  
David sure as hell hadn’t changed, and Javi’d be damned if he was gonna regress back to the days when David patronised him.  
He thinks a lot on the past interactions with David and his father.  
He is reminded of the heated arguments they used to have, and his own foolish mistakes.  
He is reminded of the days when he used to play ball, and so is reminded of the person he used to be, and who he is now. Slightly rough around the edges with a heart full of pain and a hand full of thorns.  
And yet Javi thinks that he has not changed much more than that.

Weeks pass full of pain, loyalty and closeness. Chaos.  
Javi thinks his survival is beginning to appear doubtful. He sees before him a crumbling road and the only way the others are getting across it is if he goes down with it.  
He and Clementine become closer and Javi also discovers that he has so much more to live for, and paradoxically, so much more that he would die for.

He is okay with that.

His journey becomes a tunnel through which he does not believe there is a way out of, and so he keeps going. Keeps smiling and making terrible jokes because it’s what he’s there for.

He wagers that it’s enough, and decides to make his peace with it.

                                       -

And then they survive. They all survive. Even David, whose public enemy number one now appears to be himself.

They are fine. All of them. At least for now. 

And Javi can breathe. He can breathe so easily that he is at a loss for what to do. Where does he go from here, when death comes knocking and he opens the door to a fate that doesn’t come.  
When he looks down and he does not see his bones scattered before him, but the flesh of man who neglected to notice he had any. 

So he stops, and he thinks once again of beautiful, radiant, idealistic, wise Mariana. And he decides that she was right. He feels a weight rise off of him as he realises this, and that this is something he wants to do. He honours her in the only way he can.

He bares his soul to his family, and even to Clementine.  
He doesn’t say much, he doesn’t have time to, in the world they live in. Just a few simple words. It’s not a big deal after everything that has happened, but his soul feels lighter for it anyway.  
And it means a lot to him, more than he realised.  
That’s all he needs.

Kate smiles and tells him that in the future, if he so decides to, she’ll be happy to welcome whoever Javi marries into their misfit family. Javi rolls his eyes at this.

David doesn’t much care, surprisingly. It’s a stronger relief than Javi realised.

Gabe and Clem are, of course, as warm beyond their years as Mari would’ve have been, and can see the importance of this in Javi’s eyes as he speaks.

And Javier Garcia, with a lifetime of regrets, and a hole in his heart, finally plucks the thorns from his arms.

They don’t bother him anymore.


End file.
